ZHOU Bangyan – Lyrics to the Lament of Those Behind Adorned Windows
Someone gives my drunken self a hand in mounting the horse,
Morning breezes puff through, yet they sober me not.
Reflected in the rippling water are green tiles and crimson eaves,
Through veils of *ping willows, I a ferry terminal come across.
Once upon a time I wrote on the now failing wall an in*ion,
Covered in cobwebs it is, over the fading ink mosses grow.
I think of what has come and gone, years like water have flowed by,
Long I hang about, infused with autumn thoughts are my sighs.
I've grown tired of revisiting where I had been,
Whatever happened in Jiangling,
Why bother at all asking Yang Qiong of it again?
An old melody dreary sounds,
Locking listeners' brows in frowns, yet for whom is it performed?
If she was here before me,
She'd behold me most attentively with the greatest devotion.
I need not hear the Melody of the Town of Wei,
Before the song is sung to its end, my tears have begun to flow.